[FRIAM] Automata with FFT

[Steve Smith]

On 9/26/22 6:13 PM, glen wrote:
> I'd appreciate you (and SteveS) throwing some words at it. In 
> particular, since software patterns are *supposed* to be linked to the 
> geometric patterns of architecture, 

I'm not at all an expert on software patterns... maybe DaveW can speak 
more to this and I will ask the question of Richard Gabriel when he 
visits here with Jenny in a couple of weeks maybe...

> *where* or *how* has it gone wrong in extrapolation? Did Alexander go 
> wrong in his extrapolation? Or did others [mis]interpret?

Alexander's patterns are much more about relationships than geometry in 
my perception.  Spatially *constrained* relationships yes, but 
relationships nonetheless... it spans the same agent/field particle/wave 
dualities that we find in some simulation and quantum conceptions.

I don't think trying to emulate *architectural patterns* for software 
was ever a good idea.  Reading from the Wikipedia article on Pattern 
Languages (and remembering from the introductory sections of Alexander's 
work):

    /A pattern language can also be an attempt to express the deeper
    wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human
    endeavor, through a set of interconnected patterns. Aliveness is one
    placeholder term for "the quality that has no name": a sense of
    wholeness, spirit, or grace, that while of varying form, is precise
    and empirically verifiable.//^[1]
    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language#cite_note-1>
    //Alexander claims that ordinary people can use this design approach
    to successfully solve very large, complex design problems./

You may well be right about there having been a misapprehension on the 
part of the  Go4 when they put it all together... it feels "off" to me 
as well, but I always put that up to having too many pre-existing 
opinions about Pattern Languages and about Software Design when they 
introduced the two...
> (I've purposefully left the Subject the same because it definitely 
> relates to Chan's morphology based taxonomy and my argument with my 
> meso-biologist friend about "species diversity" versus "phylogenetic 
> diversity".)

I'm not a thread-hygiene fiend, but do appreciate it when others make 
the effort.   My offerage of *another* subject was to try to respect the 
possibility that this was a tangent.   I do think this conversation 
*can* remain tied to the diversity theme. Alexander's work is based in 
the *idea* that he and his team(s) did the ethnographic work in studying 
extant "built environments" to obtain the *essence* of what built  human 
living environments 
(regional/urban/neighborhood/compound/home/office/room/furniture) that 
can be found and used rather than a profession/industry 
(architecture/building) deciding somewhat a-priori or 
to-their-convenience what people need/want to live in/amongst.

Alexander was pretty clear (I think) that everyone should take his work 
with a grain of salt and seek to add their own patterns, generate their 
own pattern languages, etc.

The QWAN (quality without a name) business probably tweaks into our 
"effing the ineffable" thread for better or worse...  but it *is* the 
first place *I* found myself accepting that kind of mystical "mouth 
movement sounds" as maybe having more to them than just hand-waving and 
carpet under-sweeping.


>
> On 9/26/22 15:35, Prof David West wrote:
>> I am a patterns and Alexander expert. glen's uncertainty / mild 
>> antipathy is spot on. Software patterns are an oxymoron.
>>
>> Strong words, but happy to back them up with dozens of papers 
>> written/presented and hours of discussion.
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2022, at 6:29 AM, glen wrote:
>>> Very cool! Thanks.
>>>
>>> In particular, our property abuts "the ravine", which is a semi-wild
>>> place. The permaculture categories might help me orient my own
>>> intuition (that everything in the ravine should be left alone) with my
>>> neighbor's (clearing the whole area and reintroducing natives). He owns
>>> the majority of it. So, c'est la vie ... or perhaps "telle est la
>>> mort". (Don't blame me. I don't know French.) One thing this zone 0-5
>>> model might permit is modularity. That blog post implies such with the
>>> inverted garden interface. But it seems like there could be pockets of
>>> zone0es in wild areas and pockets of zone5s in urban areas,
>>> particularly in sprawling cities like LA or Houston. Growing up in
>>> Houston, where every square inch of semi-abandoned land seemed rapidly
>>> reclaimed by the swamp, is probably the source of my skepticism with my
>>> friends' diversity doctrine.
>>>
>>> There's a lot to digest in the biophilia links. I have to confess, I
>>> haven't given pattern languages much attention. It always seems
>>> motivated by geometry, which fails for me. Of course, I'm familiar
>>> enough with software patterns. But that's always failed for me as well.
>>> They seem too ephemeral, unstable ... i.e. not real, convenient
>>> fiction, and *perfect* opportunity for gurus to blind others with their
>>> gobbledygook mouth sounds. I guess it reminds me of category theory,
>>> too abstract for my ape brain. But maybe some of his earlier work on
>>> Clifford algebras might motivate me? I could start here, I guess:
>>> https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-1472-2_41
>>>
>>> Thanks again.
>>>
>>> On 9/24/22 10:29, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 9/24/22 9:49 AM, glen wrote:
>>>>> Such efforts seem so inherently metaphorical it's difficult for me 
>>>>> to approach a concrete conversation. For example, I have a couple 
>>>>> of biologist friends, one meso (bugs) and one macro (ungulates), 
>>>>> who thought I was being contrarian when I challenged their 
>>>>> assertion that biodiversity in urban areas was *obviously* lower 
>>>>> than that of natural areas like forests. Of course, I admit my 
>>>>> ignorance up front. Maybe they are. But it's just not obvious to me.
>>>>
>>>> This may seem a little tangential but the realm of Permaculture 
>>>> Design has a suite of truisms on these topics, though they are 
>>>> articulated in their unique language which can be a little hard to 
>>>> translate sometimes.  I think the permaculture community represent 
>>>> a fertile laboratory for doing *some* experiments as implied by 
>>>> Glen's questions.
>>>>
>>>> A good example which gestures toward the Chan work at least 
>>>> morphologically is maybe worth a scan if not a full read here:
>>>>
>>>> https://aflorestanova.wordpress.com/2016/04/08/zones-in-permaculture-design/
>>>>
>>>> Permaculture's 5 zone quantization doesn't preclude a recognition 
>>>> of there being continuous gradients in many dimensions from a locus 
>>>> of "technological closed-loop" (zone 0) and "biological closed 
>>>> loop" (zone 5).
>>>>
>>>> There is a *lot* of talk in the literature about the interfaces 
>>>> around zone 0, 1, 2 techno-structures creating localized ecozones 
>>>> that harbor diversity (desired and undesired == vermin) which I 
>>>> think provide some good anecdotal evidence about biodiversity in 
>>>> transition zones and acute technological interfaces (e.g. roofs, 
>>>> walls, corners, posts, fences, etc).  Permaculture is a domain of 
>>>> recognizing and exploiting "happy accidents".
>>>>
>>>> It is also worth noting the diversity spike that happens in 
>>>> estuarial contexts...
>>>>
>>>> A more formal study of Urban/Architectural design with an eye to 
>>>> *health* (human-centric view) is the domain of Biophilic Design 
>>>> <https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/biophilia-healing-environments/>. 
>>>> Nikos Salingaros is a hard-core Mathematician at UT-San Antonio who 
>>>> addresses abstractions of Complexity 
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Complexity> and 
>>>> Pattern Languages <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language> 
>>>> as well as Architecture and Urbanism.  He also has some interesting 
>>>> opinions 
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Salingaros#Philosophy> about 
>>>> post modernism as well as Dawkins Atheism.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Since then, they've presented (meso and macro) arguments that 
>>>>> justify their position. It does seem obvious that urban areas 
>>>>> trend to more adaptable animals like coyotes and raccoons and less 
>>>>> so to, say, deer. The bugs are more interesting. Meso guy found 
>>>>> some articles that show "species" diversity in urban areas is 
>>>>> roughly the same as natural areas. But phylogenetic diversity is 
>>>>> clearly lower in urban areas. That seems counter intuitive to me. 
>>>>> It's a cool result.
>>>>>
>>>>> My main point when I originally expressed skepticism, though, was 
>>>>> about microbial diversity. Is it possible that bug-layer and 
>>>>> microbe-layer (including what lives in/on large animals like rats 
>>>>> and humans) diversity makes up for lower diversity in large-layers?
>>>>>
>>>>> I *feel* that projects like Chan's could help with this question 
>>>>> since it seems prohibitively expensive to sample and test enough 
>>>>> microbial populations of urban and wild areas, especially if we 
>>>>> include intra-animal populations. I'm just not sure *how* they 
>>>>> could help.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 9/24/22 03:38, David Eric Smith wrote:
>>>>>> It’s funny; I know Bert.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of our colleagues played a role in bringing him out to work 
>>>>>> at Google in Tokyo.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A mathematician (Will Cavendish) who has part-time support at IAS
>>>>>> https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish 
>>>>>> <https://www.ias.edu/scholars/will-cavendish>
>>>>>> is also interested in the mathematical dimensions of this, though 
>>>>>> I have only a glancing exposure to how those two together are 
>>>>>> trying to frame the problems.  Because Bert has come at it more 
>>>>>> from the ALife/engineering approach, and Will’s interests run 
>>>>>> more in the direction of proving capabilities of broad classes of 
>>>>>> systems, often interested in their aggregation as categories 
>>>>>>  (and also about the role of simulation as a replacement for 
>>>>>> proof in systems that produce complicated enough state spaces), 
>>>>>> it should be a productive and interesting collaboration.  I don’t 
>>>>>> know how engaged others are in the Google group on this specific 
>>>>>> project, because I am too far outside that loop.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Eric
>
>
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